Fighting AIDS with probiotics

[Guest guest]

This is from the Kimchi group. What is interesting is that this group

is introducing probiotics into *Africa* ... home of things like

fermented caterpillars and cow urine. I wonder if the folks

there have gotten so far off from their traditional diets? I was

at a meeting once where a woman from this area was going to

Africa to teach them about hand-dying and spinning and weaving

cloth ... skills they say they have lost because of colonial issues

(they were " encouraged " to buy, rather than make, their clothes).

Anyway, it's interesting on multiple fronts. Apparently a probiotic

diet makes the vagina more acidic, and less hospitable to AIDS,

(and maybe candida?).

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communications.uwo.ca/western_news/feature.html?listing_id=13038

Reid, based at the Lawson Health Research Institute, suggests that a probiotic

diet maintains the high level of acidity needed in a woman’s vagina to prevent

transmission of the HIV virus. A vaginal bacterial imbalance creates an

environment more likely to harbour the virus, says Reid.

The second benefit of probiotic bacteria is that it helps lessen the severity of

diseases with diarrheal symptoms.

“Every 15 seconds a child dies from a diarrheal disease,” says Reid.

Reid and Dr. Katsivo, Lawson’s grant development facilitator, have been

working for two years to establish a bacterial research program that would help

fight AIDS and diarrheal diseases but had been unable to secure funding.

....

In Tanzania, 550 000 men and 750,000 women are living with HIV or AIDS,

infecting more than one of every 13 Tanzanians.

“The challenge of developing a special diet is ensuring access to normal,

everyday supplies,” says Reid. “We needed to find a natural remedy that could

have an impact on diarrhea.”

So where is a natural remedy rich in friendly bacteria found? Yogurt. Students

will teach Mwanzanians how to prepare a probiotic yogurt that is rich in the

essential micro-organisms.

Probiotic yogurt is made from a powder base that can be mixed with cow or goat

milk. “While there is a nutritional benefit in conventional yogurt, there is an

added health benefit to probiotic yogurt, in that it can be used in the

prevention and treatment of disease,” according to Reid.

In addition, fermented foods are indigenous to the region, so adapting to the

new diet will be more of a natural process, says Gough.